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LIVE Brand Case Study: Squatch Watch

We have another brand that we're gonna talk through, and this one's real exciting. We're gonna wait just a minute to bring on the next person, cause there's an impact to that, but this is a good example. What this is, is this is an example of having a client, and I'm gonna bring Scotty up, Scotty McLaughlin. So, Scotty's gonna talk to a client that we've had, here we go, there's Scotty. Hi, everyone. Here's Scotty, how you doing? Give me those things. Pass those out. Hold on, one minute, don't give it away. So, one second, I just want to introduce Scotty first, before he starts his show and tell. Scotty is, so everything's connected. Scotty, you remember that video, that stop motion Gatorade video? Okay, so. That stop motion Gatorade video, we dated on that video. He was the camera guy, the director -- And I came back for more, somehow. Yeah (chuckles). I don't know why. So, he eventually agreed to come work at Tether, which has been incredible. So, Scotty brought with ...

him his relationships as well, and he'll talk to that in a minute. But what is exciting about this case study, this example, is that what we did is we went from a client to looking at an event, and thinking, hey, that would be a fun team-building, multi-discipline opportunity to all work together on a project that's really fun, and it was a non-work order project, remember those? So, nobody asks us to do this. So we could, it's wide open, we can do whatever we want. So, lots of fun there, when you get in a room like that, and then that turned into a promotional opportunity. So, creating a case study from that to get more clients by showing them our multi-discipline approach, so it served lots of purposes. Team building, multi-discipline, and also to get more clients and reinforce our relationship with existing clients. Scotty McLaughlin, tell us about this project. So, I'm director of moving images at Tether. I had a relationship with Red Bull for about 10 years, prior to coming to Tether, 8 years, 9 years. And for years I was watching all these people have fun through the camera, and dying that I wasn't able to be part of the fun. So, Soapbox came to town last year, last August. They ran the course down Yesler, big steep hill. And as soon as they announced it, I was like, I'm not gonna try to pitch getting work on this, I want to be in it. I want to get us involved in being in it. So we have a great ID team, we have all the creative minds of Tether, I thought, we gotta build a car. And that's the car. Cue the car? So, Soapbox, when we first got together on this idea, we came along and we were doing, we came up with some ideas. Basically, everybody came into the room, people that I wanted to get involved in it, came up with some ideas, one was the Squatch Hunters. We wanted to build a car, one was make an old ferry to stay with the idea, here. Another was, so we had all kinds of cool deco ideas there. Another was the lumberjacks, cause yes there is the original Skid Row. So we we're gonna build a big log to drag down. Then, Bertha. Great idea, right? This was done, by the way, and they did it very well, there was a model of Bertha that went down the race. But we didn't want our thing to break down five minutes into the race, so, we, you know. So we ended up -- So you think of that, just think of that for a second. So, what we did here, you saw those concepts, so we got in a room with our inter-disciplinary team with industrial designers, writers, videographers, graphic designers, all those people got in a room, we interacted. So, we got together and we brainstormed, and then we went away to our desks and we came up with the concepts. We presented back, we presented back to ourselves. So we were the clients, so this was the fun of it. Yeah, super cool, fun experience. And so we came up with Sasquatch ended up taking the cake, so I brought a little takeaway for all you guys to pass out. So, pass those around, get them up to the cheap seats in the back. But, anyway, we passed these out that day, we did a lot of social push, we went through inspirational boards, developed the look, came up with all kinds of handout ideas and this ended up being the taker. Made shirts, on game day we had these really cool team jumpsuits, these were seriously branded up, you know? Yeah, so we all wore those. So, in order to do this, what we figure is, we're a team. So what do teams need? Unis. Uniforms. What else do you need? A brand is a team, the same thing. You need a logo, right? You need an identity. So we created the identity, you got this, you got Mr. Squatch here, so this is our identity. And then we started applying it to elements. So, this is just like a brand project like you do for anyone, but we did it for ourselves and we did it for fun. Helmet, on the helmet, and on the car. So, we're gonna take you through a little bit on the car, but the car was done by our industrial design team, and you'll see some footage of how they built it, but the rules were you had to build it all yourself. And they had some dimension things and weight and all that stuff, and so this is amazing. You can take that top off and this is all welded together, this is fiberglass. This is done in a fiberglass mold, so this is an amazing little work of art. And, style points, I mean, it looks really cool. I mean, a Subaru Brat? Come on. The Brat? I mean. That was the [Talking Over Each Other] Remember Awake? So, Awake social media. So we've got all of our -- I'm holding this up like it's a promo for the thing. So, Awake was where we got all of our traction around social media, so learning from that and knowing how to do that, we had a lot of fun with social. We did. We did. We got out the word, and all around our neighborhood in Pioneer Square, people were getting jacked up about it. Delicatus made a sandwich called the Squatch Hunter, I think or it was the Harry the Henderson or something like that, and they shouted out to us. The Mayor's office got involved, they shouted out. Police. The police department got involved, because we were -- In a good way. We were calling out for like, everyone that saw Sasquatch in the area, we knew there was a Sasquatch in the area. We played this story big, and pushed it out that way, and we got a lot of good response back, it was popping up all over. Jay Ostby, who works with us and is our ID team basically was the guy on designing this, and he was gonna come today but he's sick. On race day, this is not Jay. Jay was supposed to drive the car, Jay at 2 AM on race day called me and he said, my wife is in labor. Yeah (chuckles). And so Ryan Maloney, who also had a lot to do with building the car had to drive. So it was right down to the wire, very exciting. It was amazing and so, I don't know if anybody went there or watched it, but they do full national coverage, so they have all the judges and the cameras and they are lined up. Cause they only do this every couple years. And it's really hard to get in. Really hard to get a spot. And so there're everything from just private groups that do it for fun to corporations and like I was saying, an agency that do it. So, it's a big deal, and the thing is just lined. And part of the judging is on your car, of course your speed and how you get down there, but it's the show around it. And so that's kind of what - wait, that's what we do, storytelling, we can create that. We're storytellers, exactly. So that was the fun part is creating that whole show. Yeah, okay, we got a cool car, and that'll go down really fast, but what is the show? And also at the beginning, as you kick off before you go down, you have to do your little dog and pony up there on top. But here's the car, and we talked about the build, and this was done, I mean, these guys, talk about - remember that Nike entertainment thing, doing that at night? These guys were working at night. They were working at night, up in the shop, Daniel Petrzelka, one of the team members, his dad owns a shop, and they're up there making the fiberglass and welding in it, and ... Yeah, it's unbelievable ... fabrication. Ryan Maloney, he basically lived this for a couple weeks, but we were inspired by the Brat. Here we are with foam core printouts, we had printouts all over our walls and on the floor, and here's the process of starting to make this and we wanted to not only perform well, but look good. You gotta have that little seat in the back, you know, the Brat seat that you had in the back, and here's Ryan on the left and Jay on the right, two members of our industrial design team, and we had our Portland team, Michael Mankowski, involved, so it was really a fun team-building effort. It was super easy, though, when I kinda brought the idea in, just said look, we can tie everybody together in the whole studio, and show one project. It's gonna be out of pocket, sorry, but here's something we can tie everybody together with, and get everybody jacked up to really get stoked about doing one thing together, without anybody coming in from the outside and saying no, we don't quite like it that way, or. It was a free-for-all, and it just kinda shows, this little box right here represents what Tether, to me, can do as just, out of nothing. You know, there it is. So, big kudos to the ID team for this part of it. And then of course we documented it along the way, Adam Bale, myself, we had GoPro's all over this thing in testing, and you'll see the video in a sec, but that was, the ultimate goal was that was gonna be what we had to show, because we can't carry this around with us all the time. So, a little click on the website saying, hey, look what we came together to do, super cool. It was a fun, fun, fun thing to do. It was like lighting a fire. And part of the fun is you get the sense at Tether, we're a bunch of friends that hang out together and do cool stuff, and Scotty, as I mentioned, first with the Gatorade video and then we went to Maine and we shot that Swan's Island thing, and Scotty hangs off the side of cliffs and helicopters shooting Red Bull videos, guys, BASE jumpers, and all that stuff so, he does this in his sleep. And to be able to bring this to our work, not for a client but for ourselves, was really fun. So I think we can roll the video, we got a cool video, it's kind of a little case study. Still tweaking it and putting it together, but I thought it'd be fun to debut it here, actually. Yeah, this is the worldwide debut. There was a smell that first caught my attention that day. Some combination, polecat weed and wet dog. An unmistakable, nose-burning stench. And then came the scream. Horrible scream. I turned to see a gigantic, hairy beast rushing toward the woods with two of our chickens. Our eyes met, and I swear, that scream turned to mocking laughter. (suspenseful music) Yeti. Raksha. Bigfoot. Skunk Ape. Sasquatch. Some say it's a hoax. Myth. Pseudo-science. But these chicken-thieving, door-stomping, hairy log-chuckers have roamed the earth for over a thousand years. And I know where they'll be next. Driven by the wildfires to the east, by the light of the Spurgeon moon, all signs indicate the centenary migration patterns of Sasquatch will lead him back to the floodplains of Elliot Bay Basin. And that's where we'll be waiting. I needed the right people to help me track down and snare the elusive creature. So I assembled a crew of the best hunters, trappers, ditch diggers, and wrench turners I could find. Our team included Augustus Fallington, 40. Chief strategist, deals cards from the bottom of the deck. Gunner Carlson, 53, mountain man, head of surveillance. Enzo Carmichael, 26, stunt driver, mechanic, mute. Yakov Dubrovsky, age unknown, Russian financier. And myself, Gail Wescott, 37, Sasquatch Expert and expedition captain. Sparing no expense, we began around-the-clock work on designs for the perfect craft to snare the beast. No ordinary vehicle would suffice. It had to be sturdy but fast, and most importantly, it had to look the part. First, we needed the right materials. 7000 Series Aluminum tubing, chromoly double-buttress tig welded joinery, machined aramid structure panels, hydroformed titanium rear supports. We're shooting for 40. Think we can get 40. That'll feel pretty good. (pumped up, inspirational music) Days turned to nights as the light of the red moon tracked in the western sky. The time was near. I could smell that familiar stench again. Fisherman's nets began disappearing along the South Fork River. Chicken coops were toppled in the Stillaguamish, and the moss-lined streets of Skid Row and Pioneer Square are turned into a brouhaha fit for the centennial of the century. Yes, it was time. We were almost there. Just a few final additions needed to be made. Our labors attracted a whole host of new believers. Before this adventure began, I had never heard of a Twitter machine or Instant Gram, but Sasquatch converts all the way up to the Mayor's office were talking about us. They even created a Squatch 'wich down at our favorite deli to sustain us through the long nights of assembling our vehicle. (crowd cheers wildly) (exciting, building music) (yells indistinguishably) Ultimately, the team went their separate ways due to differing opinions on the true nature of Sasquatch. But Enzo and I soldier on, with the invaluable toolkit we assembled through all those long nights at the Squatch Watch headquarters, and the faith of the many new believers. He's still out there. The hunt continues. Because it must. So, think of that for a minute. So, you're watching that as, not only was it fun to do, as you can tell, but think of it as a potential client, or someone. So they're watching that and they're going, I'd like to work with those guys. They look like they're having fun, they know what they're doing, they know how to build a story, they know how to create buzz around this. So, it hits all those touch points. Sometimes as a studio or as a designer, whether you're single, you're on your own, or you're with a group, sometimes you have open time. So, I get asked that a lot, you know, how do you get more work? How do you get bigger clients, all that. Like, sometimes you have to make up the work. And, I showed a couple of those examples, with TiVo Talo, with Riff, you know, to get Gatorade. With this, you have a little open time? Create something. You have a passion for something, it might be a non-profit, it might be a cause, or, might be an industry. Create something, and show them what you're passionate about. Show them what your thought process is, and what you can do. So, I wanted to thank Scotty for coming in and taking us through the Soapbox Derby, and did we win? What did we do? We finished sixth. We finished sixth. We finished sixth. We were robbed! We were way up on the social scale though, we got a lot of socials, I don't remember exactly on that, but that was directed and written by Adam Bale, who works with us, so kudos to him for the video. It's pretty slick, lot of fun. All right. Thanks for -- All right, thanks, Scotty. Hey, thanks for bankrolling it. (chuckles) Thanks for coming in. (applause) Does he take the horse he rode in on, too? Take the Squatch Mobile? That's fun to drive. You know, we wanna put a motor in that thing and take off.